Will Obasanjo And Atiku Close Ranks And Reach Convergence On Supporting Peter Obi For 2024? View This Commendation Tweet
The Oasis Reporters
May 25, 2024
The internet was abuzz when a news flash came in a few days ago that former Nigerian Vice President and People’s Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate in the 2019 election, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar was said to have proposed in principle that he may line up behind his former running mate in that election, Peter Obi to contest in 2027 against President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in the forthcoming election.
Is it really true about what the news on the street is?
This is increasingly becoming doubtful going by what the one time Vice President of Nigeria, Atiku Abubakar under President Olusegun Obasanjo has been quoted as saying.
Well, he will keep putting his foot forward for any presidential election as long as he wants. Not minding whether it is the turn of the north or not. After all Abraham Lincoln tried and failed several times before he eventually succeeded as the American president and rose to the occasion as a phenomenal Commander in Chief of the United States of America.
Peter Obi has visited Atiku Abubakar and their smiling photo ops, coincidentally released by Atiku Abubakar himself in a tweet is what has given rise to speculations all over the nation.
There is no love lost between Atiku Abubakar and his former boss Olusegun Obasanjo ‘who just laughed’ when his former deputy made his move, and he deftly withheld his support, only giving it to him when Atiku Abubakar ran against Mohammadu Buhari, a former military general Obasanjo perceived to be incompetent as a man who could be trusted to manage Nigeria’s diversity. But Atiku lost that election.
After papering the cracks for the rift between the duo for the purpose of the 2019 election, Obasanjo swiftly swung his support to a former governor without indictments going by the records of the Economic And Financial Crimes Commission, (EFCC), a man whose governorship of Anambra state has been described as a watershed in that state by various national and international bodies and organizations, Mr. Peter Obi.
Incidentally, Peter Obi was Atiku Abubakar’s prime choice as his Vice Presidential running mate in 2019. Obi threw his hat into the ring in 2023, the turn of the South, going by the unconstitutional but widely popular convention of rotation of the position every eight years to preserve the unity of the country.
But Atiku Abubakar who fought former President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan to the ground on principle that it was the turn of the north, has now embraced the same principle of right of precedence, exactly what he denied Jonathan.
That was one major reason the ordinary people of the South turned their backs on him, despite being his main backers in 2019, even though he thought it was political brinkmanship to break the ranks of the South by drafting Ifeanyi Okowa who as then Delta State governor was the convener of the Southern governors forum that met and insisted on the turn of the south after 8 years of the Buhari presidency, considered by many analysts as Nigeria’s worst period economically, politically and socially. As well as a harrowingly difficult and traumatic period in terms of security of lives and property.
Since 2023, Obasanjo’s sympathies and support has been with Peter Obi.
He is not a saint but among politicians in Nigeria today, Peter Obi is a bundle of integrity. pic.twitter.com/M3THSJWqS2
— Olusegun Aremu Obasanjo (@Oolusegun_obj) June 15, 2022
As the radar beams it’s searchlights on the 2027 elections, all options by political gladiators is being focused on strengths and weaknesses as they strategize to line up to face President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in a period that Nigerians are voting with their feet to flee Nigeria’s worst period of inflation that was single digit under Jonathan, but jumped to double digits under the gross incompetence of Muhammadu Buhari and is seemingly not getting any better under Tinubu.
There’s mass inflation and a lack of infrastructure with millions of people being driven into penury as foreign direct investments (FDI) dry up, while companies are closing in Nigeria while they relocate abroad.
Those are the challenges as Nigeria throttles to the presidential election that is barely 3 years away and strategies are being drawn up.
Nigerians wait with bated breaths.
Greg Abolo
gregabolo@gmail.com